A Stale Game

WhitePawPrints

Criticism is a dangerous thing to leave here. However, I am compelled.

In my opinion, all the new expansions are nothing to get excited about. Honestly approximately 95% of the "new" content is just reskins.

World events = reskinned dolmens.

Public delves = reskinned.

Dungeons = reskinned, with the occasional, minor reskinned mechanic.

Trials = reskinned, with the occasional new mechanic.

Overland content = listening to lore for hours on end.

Gear = often breaks the balance of the game.

While it is interesting to explore some new areas now and then, and the occasional cameo is also nice... the new overland stories are just not engaging. The ES Loremaster may be good at developing new lore but I cannot agree that it makes for good storytelling. Creating lore is very different from creating an engaging story.

We need characters to care about. While the companions and other characters make cameos here and there, there is usually less than one line of dialogue referencing past deeds. Creating new story arcs works when they're connected to the overall narrative.

i.e. The stories have had little to nothing to do with the Alliances since the end of those quests. Even the cameos aren't working for their alliances anymore; they are just there for the cameo affect.

Vvardenfell/Clockwork City = 2/3 three demi-gods did not even mention the Ebonheart Pact that was governing their people in any memorable way. No ripple effects from the world meld Molag Bal attempted. In my opinion, Molag Bal could've attempted to influence the demi-gods in a roundabout way and while they would've resisted, could've planted the seeds for their madness to spread; which could've led to the Saints of Asylum to go mad. Or the dolmens had some sort of influence or relation on the asteroid lingering over Morrowind.

Summerset: Three separate Daedric Princes were involved in a struggle for a powerful artifact. Molag Bal had no agent or aspect that to try to steal it; which Molag would've been motivated to do so to regain his strength that he lost at the defeat of the Vestage.

Elsweyr: Queen Aryenn has been very involved in local politics throughout her region, and yet she never made an appearance in the very loud political struggle of Elsweyr. Not even an agent of hers. Razum'Dar was on vacation and not involved in the politics at all!

Admittedly I stopped PvE story delving there. However, from what I can tell of the companions is that they're like the Pawns from Dragon's Dogma: soulless husk that just follow their master's around. It'd make more sense to just have them as hirable mercenaries. And they just make the ludicrously simple PvE overland content even easier.

Now trials and dungeons - The grind of this game is heavily focused surrounding these. So after doing hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands of dungeons... the new dungeons, and whatever reskinned or slightly changed mechanics they have, are of no interest. ZoS balancing is just making mechanics more punishing, which makes the grind to learn new dungeons even longer.

I have to say the most interesting thing I find about new content is the new public delves. They're large and often beautiful new areas, and they are usually the place that'll have the reskinned, and very rarely, new enemy types. They are worth a little exploring.

PvP - Very VERY reliant on balancing. When Sload's was a thing, I stopped playing PvP. When [snip] and decide to take a balanced class and buff it to high hells, I stop playing. PvP is very fun when classes are balanced, but in my experience playing PvP for seven years is that they are VERY rarely balanced. Balancing is a whole new zone of criticism so I'll leave that there.

World Events - The dragons of Elsweyr were one of the truly new things that I include in that 5% of new content. They were far more interesting than the Geyers of Summerset and the Vampire things of Greymoor. I would like to see this evolved upon, instead of just the volcano dolmens of the next expansion.

A large, unique legendary boss should wander around a zone, killing or trampling or scaring off the other enemy NPC's until engaged by players. The strength should be that of the dragons of Elsweyr, if not greater. Only one can spawn in game at a time, and the respawn rate should be significantly lower than that of any other world event. Enough so that when it appears, all players would like to go and help slay the creature. In order to create such an incentive, it should drop a unique cosmetic reward such as a mount, furnishing piece, momento, motif, etc. Do not have it located by any icon on the map; only that if it is discovered, players would have to call in allies by talking in zone chat or guild chat. Have it not stop wandering while being attacked, so that players will have to catch up if they're late to the party.

Now this worked well in other games because there were leveling zones. Here, everyone would have access to such a wandering event. To prevent the flooding of one zone, there'd have to be some sort of precedent for a player to be involved. We already know that there are different instances in the game, so maybe one where completion of the zone's main quest required would be where to spawn the wandering event.

Now the 5% content that was truly new includes the new classes. Warden and Necromancer. While I believe the introduction of these new classes were very poorly placed, they were new and exciting. Something worth getting excited about.

Warden - While we get reskins on literally everything in the game, I'm quite surprised that we don't get reskinned Warden animal abilities. They're all Morrowind themed, and never changed. Granting Valenwood, Summserset, Elsweyr, Marsh, Skyrim, Highrock, etc. animal packs to the Warden would revitalize the class and make replaying the class something somewhat new and exciting.

While I'm supporting reskins, add reskin packs to ALL the classes.

Dragonknight - Balrog-style animations. Dragon Leap would change the wings to a fiery shadow type. The whip ability would work well with this, but restyle it a bit along with the other classes. Shadow and fire instead of rock and scale for a lot of the Earthen abilities. Or add feathered wings in maybe a Gryphon type pack.

Templars - Fallen-style where the use of the blue blight we see in LoM could fit in well for a corrupted type.

Sorcerers - Would get creative and add some elementals familiars, and change the lightning to different elements.

Nightblade - .... Well, they're assassin/rogue types, not sure how much you can change those animations. [snip]

If ZoS is just going to resell us reskinned crap, then reskin something that we would be using a lot, and that can add a MASSIVE amount of personalization to characters. (This would be huge for the RP community, and the PvP community where the similar overpowered builds can dominate the population for months to years!)

New Sets - The sets are boring. They can easily compound to make a class incredibly powerful, or they can fizzle out completely. There really is nothing exciting about a new set, other than trying to keep a tank/healer/dps build at optimal performance. I can only suggest adding race and/or class specific sets, which I known is something ZoS has avoided. The fun loot systems that I've played before are in AARPG's like Diablo 2, but that would require such a huge overall and balancing... I cannot seriously suggest it for this game.


Elder Scrolls Online is like a cake. When ZoS tries to change something, they just change the icing's color and how it is decorated. It's still the same flavor, and it gets old real quick. And rather than building upon the original cake by adding different flavors, new decorations, and new frosting... ZoS's expansions are just the same cake, decorated differently, over and over again. It gets stale and old. If ZoS won't turn out a new cake that improves upon their original, then no one is going to return for any length of time.




Well, that is my opinion on the state of the game over the last seven years. While it has ended thousands of hours of entertainment (mostly grinding outside of PvP), I have found the game incredibly stale, lacking imagination and creativity, and not worth logging into. I do hope that it changes by adding some flavor that all would enjoy AND be an incentive for players to return.

[Edit for Bashing.]

Zezin

I think we were getting some fairly good stuff up until Elsweyr with necromancer and since then we've mostly seen reskin after reskin, I mean the last two trials had ZERO new models and animations for any NPCs, some people speculate that they can't have new animations due to console limitations and yet we get new mementos and emotes every couple of months. To me they're just lazy and milking ESO as much as possible for as little expenditure as possible at this point.

CoronHR

i notice the same wash rinse repeat.

i'm mildly excited about the next expansion, maybe for the card game. but the zones...they're pretty and all, but it's a lot of same ol' same ol'. i agree that roaming bosses are way more exciting than the stationary dolmen-esque. they ought to do that with the spare island in high isle. don't know if that will happen.

i think you make a good point about the stories. they're boring. i wish they wrote compelling stories. in other rpgs, i was excited to learn more. in eso, i can't press the next button fast enough, although i took my time with the high isle prologue, and it was not bad.

i like the dungeons, though. i think those have improved. the last trial, rg, was interesting and fun and i still run it.

the sets are mind-boggling, what with paragraphs for 5-piece bonuses. i'm never really compelled to switch

Gaeliannas

I also feel like the server performance is hindering their ability to be creative as well. I checked out the PTS and the new zone was quite literally devoid of mobs, etc... for the most part. There were numerous places you could stand and not see a single mob, or maybe one way off in the distance. Yeah it looked ok, but it also looked like a zone someone built to have the absolute least amount of impact on their servers as possible.

AcadianPaladin

CoronHR wrote: »

...the sets are mind-boggling, what with paragraphs for 5-piece bonuses. i'm never really compelled to switch

Very much this! 'When both moons are full and you dodge-roll into three consecutive fully charged heavy attacks, you summon a stack of daggers. Once you have three stacks of daggers . . . ' *yawns and moves on*

As opposed to a simple 5 piece bonus like: 'Adds 500 weapon and spell damage to all light attacks'. *perks up with interest*

Redtrek524

WhitePawPrints, I had to screenshot your post. I agree wholeheartedly, though I expect you to get censored for bashing...

xXSilverDragonXx

WhitePawPrints wrote: »

Criticism is a dangerous thing to leave here. However, I am compelled.

Have you not read this forum? The pages are loaded with criticisms. An endless sea of criticisms.

buttaface

Agree with the sentiment, but not going to come down hard on the company on this one. This is a player base and mass market problem mostly. After all, almost all console games and console-capable games themselves are essential reskins of very old, stale ideas, and console games are the mass market, not PC platform, where "originality" goes to die a very fast revenue death most of the time. Formulaic is stale and boring, but it works in mass markets that must survive competition.

All the games, and I mean ALL the games I've ever truly loved in genres close to MMO have been original, smart, actually difficult instead of "assinchair time," learn to flip the yellow switch but not press the blue button difficult.

All those games are dead, DOA for years and sometimes decades now..

While the formulaic flourish. See Anarchy Online, Shadowbane, Global Agenda, Fallen Earth, etc., the multiplayer landscape is littered with better, smarter, harder... tombstones.

The mass market wants a Big Mac, not a unique and original dining experience, so to remain floating, gaming companies are market forced to serve a Big Mac over and over that the mass market will consume. See also Hollywood, TV, Music, Dining, Social Media. Every once in awhile intelligence and mass market appeal intersect, but it's an exception and a definite revenue gamble.

MMOs are not one bit different. Or almost never are. There will never be another Guild Wars 1, for example, because that was one of the last vestiges of intelligence in multiplayer gaming before formulaic games took over the market to the exclusion of all others. Likewise, there will never be another Fallout 3, there will be more and more Skyrim. The market dictates that. Players of these games all -say- they want smart, hard, innovative content, but they want anything but that in the mass market required for success.

Chiaroscuro

AcadianPaladin wrote: »

CoronHR wrote: »

...the sets are mind-boggling, what with paragraphs for 5-piece bonuses. i'm never really compelled to switch

Very much this! 'When both moons are full and you dodge-roll into three consecutive fully charged heavy attacks, you summon a stack of daggers. Once you have three stacks of daggers . . . ' *yawns and moves on*

As opposed to a simple 5 piece bonus like: 'Adds 500 weapon and spell damage to all light attacks'. *perks up with interest*

Quite literally the biggest mood.

Necrotech_Master

the problem with some of the content though is that if its too difficult and not rewarding enough it wont be played

ive seen several threads about this regarding content like harrowstorms and dragons because they are very difficult to solo

and what about those wandering bosses in the deadlands? how often do you think those get fought now that its been out for a few months?

so your suggestion about adding effectively a wandering dragon, how often do you think it would be killed instead of avoided after the first 2 months? if you could not have any chance whatsoever of soloing it i can guarantee it will end up being ignored most of the time. make it low spawn rate, and give good drops? then you will never see one alive because it will be spawn camped like the wandering bosses in the deadlands were in the first 2 months

Xinihp

buttaface wrote: »

The mass market wants a Big Mac, not a unique and original dining experience...

Wow, speak for yourself. Why would anyone want a stale sub-optimal product for the same money?

I think it is more realistic that the market has been consolidated in the hands of a few mostly financial monopolies and they are all putting out phoned-in, low effort, maximum money milk products. But just because the quality has gone down across the board doesn't mean people WANT lower quality.

If some jaded bazillionaire simply bought the internet and every gaming company and intentionally put out only terrible low quality games, people would probably still buy it because rubbish games are better than no games.

But to make the leap to saying people WANT rubbish games just because that's the trend of what's available?

That's just nonsense.

whitecrow

Xinihp wrote: »

buttaface wrote: »

The mass market wants a Big Mac, not a unique and original dining experience...

Wow, speak for yourself. Why would anyone want a stale sub-optimal product for the same money?

For the same reason people keep going to see sequel after sequel after sequel to a movie.

People say they want something different, but when someone gives it to them they don't like it.

buttaface

Xinihp wrote: »

buttaface wrote: »

The mass market wants a Big Mac, not a unique and original dining experience...

Wow, speak for yourself. Why would anyone want a stale sub-optimal product for the same money?

I think it is more realistic that the market has been consolidated in the hands of a few mostly financial monopolies and they are all putting out phoned-in, low effort, maximum money milk products. But just because the quality has gone down across the board doesn't mean people WANT lower quality.

If some jaded bazillionaire simply bought the internet and every gaming company and intentionally put out only terrible low quality games, people would probably still buy it because rubbish games are better than no games.

But to make the leap to saying people WANT rubbish games just because that's the trend of what's available?

That's just nonsense.

Ignores the main point of my post that intelligent, innovative, harder games die because the mass market doesn't BUY them. I gave examples of innovative, smart, harder games among hundreds possible over the years that are in the MMO universe that you ignored. It is a fact that those games, and many other better, more innovative games died long ago. It is a fact that WoW beat Shadowbane and it wasn't even close. I, you and our stated preferences had nothing to do with that, the mass market dictated it. The difference between what you and I may want and what the mass market wants was crystal clear in the post. The mass market wants McDonalds and gets McDonalds, while 5 Guys is being shut down.

Xinihp

@buttaface

With respect, I think you are grossly oversimplifying and what you put forward as "facts" are little more than your personal interpretation of a birds-eye view of the market.

Most of the games you would say survived because "people just like non-innovative unoriginal games" are actually alive because they are run by massive billion dollar corporations like Blizzard/Activision. Don't you think having BILLIONS of dollars behind them maybe factors into a game's ability to weather less favorable market conditions more than everyone just loving to eat nothing burgers all of a sudden?

I think this is a case of coincidence not proving causation. You see games made by huge monopoly companies dominating the market and assume the reason their games succeed is because people really just love the phoned-in cash shop casino simulators most of them produce?

I suppose if billionaire monopolies took over the entire food supply and decided it was more cost effective to just feed everyone McNuggets, would you assume the reason everyone was eating McNuggets was because that's honestly what they preferred?

I would counter it is actually because the market has become more exclusive and consolidated in the hands of fewer and fewer super-massive corporate players, and the lower quality standards isn't because that is what people want, but because that is increasingly all there is.

That is why monopolies are bad. Unchecked monopoly leads to diminished quality and market stagnation EVERY TIME.

Games backed by huge companies survive because they have billions behind them to keep pumping the hype and marketing to push boxes and drive new players and the more formulaic games become and the more they are treated like any other stock bubble or financial product, the less emphasis on quality and innovation and the more on value extraction.

Since the nature of monopoly is to exclude all other participants from the market you see these games becoming all that is available more and more. But to simply turn a blind eye to the money factor and assume it is because people like things this way? Well, I'm not going to change your mind but all I can say is there are clearly more factors involved than you have considered.

(I also don't think ESO has gotten quite that bad yet).

If you want to give specific examples about quality games that failed utterly I would love to see it, but I don't think you actually have any real financial data. There are production challenges keeping up with the super-massive corporate players in terms of content generation and timetables, and without massive budgets to sustain that level of competitive edge only the biggest will survive. Even quality games with a relatively successful launch will lose the battle of attrition as players eventually consume all the content available and move on.

That doesn't mean people don't appreciate the higher quality standards of a well made game.